


So This is Christmas

by desperationandgin



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desperationandgin/pseuds/desperationandgin





	So This is Christmas

He knows that this time of year can’t be easy for her, not being home and not having her family. Throw being in the wrong decade on top of it all, and James hasn’t seen much of Juliet for the past couple of days because she’s thrown herself into work. Last year he hardly knew her; cared but didn’t really  _care_  - she wasn’t his to care about. But they’d been together now since April, and he figures he has to come up with a way to make this hurt less. It’s a challenge he has no clue about, not really. He’s been hoping for the past nine months that he does things right, that she’s happy and can’t complain. For her birthday he took her out to the highest valley in Dharma territory and had a romantic dinner with her. Sappy as hell, sure, but she’d smiled at him all night. He’s finding that Christmas is harder because what do you get someone who just wants to be home with her sister?  
  
He’s been listening intently to the stories she tells Amy when they sit on the porch, about how when she was real little her dad would take her to go see Santa, and he’d help her and Rachel write Christmas lists until it was time to decorate cookies. And he was listening when she told Miles about the year she finally got a Holly Hobby doll and how it was, to this day, the best gift she ever got as a kid. That stays with him for about a week until finally he makes a sub order, getting a weird look from the inventory crew, but feeling pretty proud of himself nonetheless. When it comes in, he studies it, trying to imagine a four or five year old Juliet’s face lighting up on Christmas morning. It kind of hurts, realizing there’s a kid on the other side of the world who’s going to wake up tomorrow morning and make a memory shared with a woman on an island, and he shakes his head, putting the doll in a bag with some tissue paper. It makes his head hurt to think about. (Things he’s also not thinking about: this is the year he gets his red cowboy hat with the white threading, and his whole entire cowboy get-up.)  
  
The morning of Christmas they both wake up early, a habit of needing to get up for work when it’s still dark outside. The DI’s on vacation though, so they spend those moments between dark and daylight having sex, and it’s slow and a little sad, and when they’re finished she holds onto him tightly until she falls asleep again. He gets up, throws on clothes and starts making breakfast a couple hours later, and when she finally stumbles out wearing a pair of his boxer shorts and a plain cotton t-shirt, her gift is sitting right on the table.  
  
“What’s this?” she asks, approaching it like she has a reason to be suspicious.  
  
“It’s Christmas, Blondie,” he says as he plates their food and sets it on the counter.  
  
“But I…you said we weren’t doing gifts. I didn’t get you anything.” Her eyes have been glued to the bag, and finally she looks up at him.  
  
“I didn’t get you somethin’ so I could get a present, too. I got it ‘cause I heard you talkin’ about it. You gonna open it?”  
  
She opens her mouth, then closes it, and finally reaches out to the bag. He feels like someone’s squeezing his stomach, and he needs this to be good for her, to be right, to make her smile the way she doesn’t do enough. As her hand dips into the bag he has to turn around, pretending like he’s busy pouring bacon grease into a container. There’s silence for too long, no happy or surprised gasps, and slowly he turns to look at her.  
  
Juliet’s standing with the doll in both hands, this look on her face like she doesn’t even know what to do, and suddenly he’s worried that he messed up.  
  
“I heard you tellin’ Miles, I thought…you said it was the best thing you ever got, so I – “  
  
The way she looks up at him makes him stop talking, one eyebrow arched up high and her eyes full of unshed tears. When she finally blinks, one slides down her cheek and she brushes it away. “It’s a Holly Hobby doll,” she manages, voice breaking a little. “I saw….I saw it at the store when we were shopping for Rachel’s birthday, and I wanted it so bad, but my mom…she said it was rude to want to get something for myself when we were there for Rachel,” she says with a little hiccup at the end, wiping at her cheeks again. “But then on Christmas morning, the very last present I opened, there was Holly Hobby,” she whispers, eyes back on the doll as she turns it over slowly in her hands.  
  
Tentatively, James walks closer and touches the doll’s hand. “Well. Merry Christmas, Juliet.”  
  
She looks up at him, studying his face intently, and then there’s that smile, the one that makes her dimple show. It makes his heart swell and break all at the same time, and she rises up on her tiptoes to kiss him. His hands go to her waist, holding her close even after she pulls back enough to speak softly.  
  
“Thank you, James.”  
  
It’s all she needs to say, and it’s all he needs to hear, really. Lovingly, she smoothes her hand down the front of the doll’s dress before kissing James again and tugging him into their bedroom.


End file.
